“Priority” is the option from a multitude of options for people to choose from, which option is to be preferred and regarded as the best choice to make, at that moment and based on an evaluation which is not restricted to just that moment. Priorities are set in the context of anticipation of the future, taking expectations into account. Priorities can be 2-sided; personal and common, where personal has a scope limited to the individual and common is the common ground of many personal sides.
Priorities and the Design.
From a multitude of options, the option which serves my bottom-line interest best, is the priority which is set by the Design*). This is because I’m derived from the Design. The Design is my source, in which is conditioned what is best for me or what I need in order to function optimally. Evolutionary processes have led to my existence, in which processes, selection has been performed in accordance with the fixed preferences set in the Design, working in the direction of an optimal adaption to these preferences. Life**) is a struggle for optimization of adaption to these preferences by means of anticipation of the Process*). Anticipation is optimized by following the priorities which are set by the Design. These are the options which are serving the fixed preferences of the Design, resulting in approval by the selective process*). Thus the chances of survival is optimized. The relevancy of this for me personally, is primarily on the level of the survival of humanity, as humanity exists as the result of the allowance of the selective process for this process of anticipation (Life) to stay alive. I am derived from this approval and since I am part of that, most of what is beneficial for humanity is beneficial for me personally as well, me being an agent of humanity.
Priorities are set by the Design as they derive from the preferences set by the Design, but priorities as such are not easy to recognize. When making choices, the consequence these choices have, depends on the settings of parameters, of which there are many, divided over many interacting processes. The presence of many distinct parameters having multitude of possible different values, can create an enormous potential of distinct scenarios from which to choose from. My priorities are the ones which lead to optimization of anticipation of, and adaption to, the Process. Priorities are about choices; recognizing the options and doing the right thing. This is a continuous process of evaluation, revalidation and adjustment, as circumstances change continuously having parameter values configured differently all the time. At the same time, certain settings never change, as they are the fixed preferences of the Design. What can help me in making choices, is being aware of the bottom-line objective to reach for. This is not necessarily my own selfish interest, as I am not the centre of the world. At the same time I am the primary defender of my own interests and as such legitimized to do so. The challenge is to find the right balance in which my personal interests are well maintained as well as the ones of the people I am connected with, which is in fact everybody else.
When setting priorities, the bottom-line is the optimization of the process of anticipation of the Process, which means adhering to the fixed preferences of attraction and repulsion of the Design. For people, this process is mainly executed in the mind. In order to optimize this anticipation, people need an accurate view of the Design. The Design can be recognized by the patterns of repetition which our world is built on and which patterns exist outside the mind. For an accurate view of the Design, one needs to take the pattern of diversity into account, meaning the diversity in patterns of repetition. The view of patterns build up in the mind, easily lacks this completeness of information.
Incentive, natural incentive and man-made incentive.
“Incentive” is a motivating, stimulating reward that drives behaviour or it is a reason for specific action or a leading argument for a choice. On a fundamental level, incentive is a force which determines a specific course of cause and effect. An example of an incentive is the bonus an employee can get provided a certain achievement is made. People have their incentives derived from the feelings they prefer, which feelings are the fundamental incentives for people’s behaviour.
I am governed by incentive, as I seek optimization in finding the feeling of my preference. Society is ruled by incentive. When things seem to be wrong, as in not what they ought to be, most likely there is a problem with the incentives which I am following or which are being followed by the people around me; those incentives appear not to be the correct ones. When things seem to be wrong, the problem is, that the incentive chosen to be followed, is not beneficial for the bottom-line purpose. The bottom-line purpose is finding the feeling of preference. When things seem to be wrong, as in not what they ought to be, it is not possible to reach the feeling of my preference. In a society having social problems, the incentives which are being followed may bring benefit at that moment to all or to a subset of the people involved, but further down the line they will not. At some point, longer term effects outweigh the short term effects, possibly for a subset of the people involved at first, but for all in the end. Incentives can be deceiving. The scope of my evaluation is important in order to find the bottom-line incentive to follow. Because I depend on others, I need to take their feelings into consideration as well. This goes for people around me, as well as for people further away, as all people are connected through the network of humanity. I may think I’m doing fine but in fact I am impacted by people which I am connected with, who may not be doing fine. I am impacted for the reason that these people are not doing fine. This rubs off on me, as I’m missing out on the potential of the contribution of these people in the situation when these people would be doing fine. I may know this and ignore it or I may not even notice it. In both cases I think I am doing fine but in fact I can do even better. When I am doing fine, I can feel better once the people who I’m connected with are doing fine as well. The people who I’m connected with, doing fine, will radiate on to me, since my connections will be functioning better, through the whole of the network. In addition, in this situation I do not need to have barricades around me to protect me from ill-functioning connections, which barricades are not helping to restore relationships. Without these self-created barricades, I’m released from the restrictions which come with them.
The bottom-line incentive is a natural incentive, coming from the source; the Design. The bottom-line incentive for people is “the Natural Incentive”.*)
Governance can be facilitating or it can be controlling. In a situation in which the Design is being followed, there is no room for governance by controlling as control is already in place and done by the natural incentive derived from the Design. In this situation optimized anticipation of the Process is enabled. In order to get to this situation, governance, which facilitates the alignment with the Design, can be helpful.
Some examples of prioritizing are; eating lots of candy as it seems a nice idea at the time but later it turns out to be unhealthy. Or, jumping the queue in order to get a seat, as it seems to be beneficial, but in fact it gives stress at the time and the relieve whilst sitting may not be lasting, as people around me are not very happy with me. Or, having economic benefits while happily polluting the environment, but having to pay for the damage done, later-on at some point.
These are examples of prioritizing based on misunderstanding and misjudgement. To correct this, means making an accurate diagnosis and neutralizing the incentives which are responsible for the problem. Often the solution is not in what I need to do but the solution is in quitting; to stop doing what I’m doing. One way to correct the situation is to invent and add an incentive in an attempt to overrule the existing incentive. This can be, for example, by rewarding or by punishing or by taxing. However, if these measures are not based on an accurate analysis of the problem, this may only attack the symptoms and often will introduce new problems, if the root cause is still in place. Man-made incentives are prone to be inaccurate as a steering wheel in the right direction. This is because the analysis that the incentive is based on, is prone to be inaccurate. An incentive needs to be connected to the root, the bottom-line purpose which is determined by the Design. If not, chances are, following the incentive will proof to be counterproductive. Natural incentives are incentives which are not depending on the mind of people for their existence, they are not invented by the mind and instead they are part of the Design. The world is governed by natural incentives. Natural incentives are the preferences of attraction and repulsion which exists in nature and which shape the world as I know it and natural incentives for people are the preferred feelings we have. Man-made incentives are derived from our mind in an attempt to manipulate the world around us. How successful these incentives can be, depends on how well we have made our analysis of reality, meaning how accurate we have been in our anticipation of the future. The bottom-line conclusion of this analysis may well be that the incentive to make is to neutralize the existing man-made incentives, as these incentives proof not to be accurate in their guiding. In order to have governance result to be sustainable, governance needs to be based on an accurate understanding of incentives and it needs to have a minimum of manipulation on the natural incentives. Overruling natural incentive can be tricky as this is by-passing reality and may disturb the accurateness of the process of anticipation of the future. Natural incentives are derived from the Design and connected to the bottom-line purpose. The bottom-line purpose could be something like; serving the development of humanity or optimizing the experience of preferred feeling in a sustainable manner. Serving the Design means finding the optimal fulfilling of interests of myself and of others, resulting in the best possible result for humanity, as a population, being the subject of the evolutionary process. Governance is about supporting the prioritizing of the natural incentives and to have all priorities be aligned with the Design, thus enabling for the Design to have its course and so facilitating the optimizing of anticipation of the future for humanity as the course of the Design is reliable in its patterns of repetition.
Priorities and Incentive; steering by feelings and thoughts.
Which incentive am I to follow in daily life? What are my priorities? How do I recognize these incentives and priorities? I think these questions are not easy to answer but I do have some pointers which may help me:
Try to have an accurate view of reality and follow the Design. Recognize the bottom-line objective and make my actions aligned with it. Recognize the relativity of the mind, which relativity is caused by inaccurate or partial perception of reality. Recognize the distinction between man-made incentives and natural incentives. Recognize the distinction between man-made, self-centred priorities and priorities by Design. Listen to feeling as my director in combination with the thoughts in my mind and then find the mind-set which brings the preferred feeling in a sustainable way. The bottom-line objective is defined by the Design, it is not self-centred around me but takes the rest of the world into account, including all people.
How can priorities and incentives be expected to be impacting the future of humanity? Is it to be expected that people will choose the right priorities and incentives in order for humanity to develop and optimize anticipation of the Process? The chances of humanity surviving itself, will be discussed in a separate post.
*) see the glossary in the appendix
**) see the blog post “life”.
Appendix; glossary
“Reality” is what is making a difference, what exists. This as opposed by what is in our minds, being thoughts and perception, not being reality but an image of reality. Reality exists as a process of cause and effect that is generating time and space. Reality can exist in the now, the past and in the future, here and elsewhere, which means reality is what is making a difference, what was making a difference and what will be making a difference, what exists, has existed and will exist.
“The Design” is the reality as it is manifested consistently. The Design manifests itself in structures and processes being repetitive. The Design can be regarded as unchanging, as a fixed asset. Part of the Design are the fixed preferences which are leading to attraction and repulsion and which exist as the forces of nature and the Process of continuous transformation or distribution of Energy, which lead to evolution.
Clarification: Reality is as it is, and in the case of humanity we can say that we are as we are; according the Design. “You are what you is”. The phrase “Design” is used to indicate that we are dealing with a reality that does not change over time and that is the origin of the Process of cause and effect, meaning we are not as we are without a cause. In the Process there are patterns of repetition that behave consistently and that do not change just like that, like the laws of physics for instance. Humanity is part of the Design and behaves according the properties that are laid down in the Design, deployed by evolution for example. In the Design of human kind, diversity is essential. Without diversity there is no evolution and without diversity it is not possible for people to complement each other and to be of added value. Every individual is unique and this uniqueness is part of the Design.
“A process” is a sequence of events, driven by cause and effect, as it is following a design, and having a start and finish, possibly in a cycling mode in which the sequence repeats itself from start to finish. A process is not static, it is flowing in a continuous development of steps of cause and effect.
“The Process” is the chain of events, being action and reaction, by cause and effect, which forms reality and space-time, in the past, the present and the future. The Process is visible to us, detectable, where it has repeating patterns. All we see, exists in plural and behaves in accordance with the repeating patterns of the Process, like the laws of physics. The Process is the result of the continuous transformation or distribution of energy into another form, in combination with the selective preferences, leading to attraction and repulsion, as dictated by the Design. The Process derives from the Design. The Process is the dynamic execution of the never changing Design.
“The Selective Process” is the result of the fixed preferences as recorded in the Design, resulting in repetitive structures of forces of attraction and repulsion in the continuous transformation or distribution of energy. The Selective Process shapes the continuous transformation or distribution of energy and allows the Process to unfold in a way which is compliant with the Design only. All this is leading to the Process of cause and effect being compliant with the laws of physics.
“The Natural Incentive” is a feeling that occurs when one is in-line with the Design. This means being in tune with the reality around oneself and this reality concerns more than just one’s own circle, it concerns everything one is connected with, as it concerns the Design. Prerequisite for the feeling to occur is not to be judgemental towards the Design. The feeling can occur when there is no judgement over people and when people are seen as who they really are; unique contributors to the whole, by design. Natural incentives, in general, are the preferences of attraction and repulsion which exist in nature and which shape the world as we know it and natural incentives for people, are the preferred feelings we have. “The Natural Incentive” is a phrase which points to a state-of-mind in which the search for preferred feeling is fully satisfied. A variation of natural incentive is man-made incentive, which is derived from our mind in an attempt to manipulate the world around us.
“Life” is a process or a conglomerate of processes, which has some capability to adapt to circumstances for which it makes use of knowledge of the repetitive patterns of other processes. Life lives on anticipation of the repetitive structures of other processes by means of extrapolation, leading to expectation. Expectation is used to anticipate the Process, increasing the chance to survive the selective process. Anticipation of the Process is the difference between living processes and non-living processes. Life interacts with other processes by making use of memory structures and receptors. Part of the process of organic life forms, is to develop generations.
Life is basically a process of anticipation, see the post “life”, posted earlier in “Blogpondering”.